Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/587184
students lacking water at home. The district holds com- munity "water drives" to collect bottled water and fosters conservation with "Brown is the New Green" signs. The state does not track the numbers of students schools have lost due to the drought. But to cope with declining enrollment, districts can request relief from the state, which recently began viewing the drought as a natural disaster. So far only Firebaugh-Las Deltas Unified School District has filed for relief, after losing 120 of its 2,400 students in the last two years because of the drought. In Kings Canyon School District more than 250 students have left due to the drought, says Kennedy, who teaches sixth grade at Thomas Law Reed Ele - mentary School. The drought eliminated parents' jobs in most cases. "It's hitting us hard in the classroom," says Kennedy, noting that 90 percent of students in his district and the Central Valley are poor and Latino. "Our students and everyone in the community are worried sick." FAMILIES STRUGGLE His daughter, Julie Kennedy, teaches English at nearby Orange Cove High School and is also a KCTA member. During a vocabulary exercise, she asks students to come up with one or two words to describe the impact of the drought on their lives. Among the phrases are "struggling families," "less jobs," "stressed out" and "unforgiving." " I t ' s r o u g h ," s h e s ay s . " T h e d r o u g h t h a s impacted this school in myriad ways, in addition to the campus being less beautiful. Some students moved away over the summer. Many of my students say their parents are losing a significant amount of money, and they are just plain suffering econom- ically. Yesterday at a yearbook meeting, kids were saying they can't afford to buy yearbooks and may not be able to afford prom because their parents are prioritizing. It's hard, because these kids deserve the same things as any other student in California." Students believe most people in the state have no idea how hard the Central Valley has been hit by the drought or how much their community is suffering (see page 29). Teachers like Julie Kennedy want to get the word out. "I want the people of California to know that our farmers are excellent and efficient users Clockwise from top left: Rosemary Zavala, teacher Julie Kennedy, Ubaldo Perez, Nancy Reyes, Jose Estrada, Daniel Fonseca, Jose Villicana. Kennedy's students at Orange Cove High show descriptions of the drought's impact. T he worst drought in state history is "like the Oklahoma Dust Bowl," says Dale Kennedy, Kings Canyon Teachers Association (KCTA) president. "It's hit our community hard. We depend on agriculture. If you eat stone fruit, such as peaches or nectarines, there's a high probability that our community members picked it or packed it or own the fields where it's growing." The drought has devastated the farmlands of the Cen- tral Valley, extending from Fresno to Bakersfield, and threatened the very survival of communities that have been the backbone of California's agricultural industry for decades. In some towns, wells are drying up. The water shortage has forced farmers to reduce crops they plant, so farmworker families are moving away, reducing school populations. The Alpaugh Unified School District in Tulare County keeps students indoors during "dust days." But the disaster has also brought communities closer together. Porterville Unified School District, for example, has opened shower facilities outside of school hours to 27 V O LU M E 2 0 I S S U E 3